A truly spectacular example of these wonderfully elegant 'slope back' Bentley Continental's - and most unusually this one sports a pair of rear wheel Spats too

The history folder is quite excellent, with original correspondence from the very earliest portion of BC41BG's life

Originally supplied through Mayfair and World renowned dealership Jack Barclay there are within the folder many service records, internal memorandums and also the original sales contract - its all really quite charming to behold

The first owner exchanged his 'D' series 'R' Type Continental plus a wad of money for this, the then latest and most up to date Continental available at the time - how times change and now his original car is worth twice the value of this, the replacement

I wonder which is really the better car - the S1 Fastback is certainly far rarer than the 'R' Type Continental

JB's supplied her to the first 3 owners, it would seem from the papers and serviced her throughout - by 1960 over 52.000 miles had been covered

It's funny how many visitors ask us here in the Mews whether these old cars can cope with regular use - when you look at the number of vehicles which have covered over 17.000 per annum, like this did in the first 3 years, it really makes one wonder what they thought these cars, or their owners, did all those years ago?

The last two custodians of BC41BG are very well known to us here in Kensington, the former carrying out a full suspension overhaul as well as a complete engine rebuild at his local specialists near to his home in Colchester (5.000 miles only since these works were completed) and the most recent engaged us to strip her to bare metal, repaint her beautifully (making the new rear wheel Spats at this time) and also to completely re-trim the interior and boot compartments

She presents, almost to perfection, whilst on the road she performs with quite astonishing aplomb - the freshly rebuilt engine is delightfully quiet and smooth, matching perfectly the seemless gearbox operation

The interior is, to quote the wonderful Noel Coward, "quite devine" and a most comfortable place in which to travel; again it has to be acknowledged that the S1 Continental does take a lot of beating

All in all this is one of the very nicest, if not possibly the very nicest, Fastback S1 we have come across and for the next custodian, we can confirm she gathers rather a lot of attention, from all the right people and in just the right way too